Wednesday, October 29, 2014

One of my very favorite things to do is sit at my kitchen table in the morning with a cup of coffee and a big stack of decorating magazines. Well that is just what I am doing this morning and I can't believe it but our home is in one of the magazines in the stack!

Our home is in the newest Flea Market Decor issue! I was contacted during the summer by them about being in the magazine but I wasn't sure when the issue was due out. Yesterday one of my lovely blog followers Isabella informed me that she saw our house in the magazine! I had Neal stop on his way home from work at Walmart and sure enough there was the issue. He was so excited he bought 6 issues:) The issue is the December/January one with 321 Ideas for Holiday Decorating on the front. We are SO honored and SO pleased with the way the spread came out!

To be honest I was worried that it wasn't even going to actually happen because last Christmas another magazine had contacted us to possibly be in their Christmas issue. They had me submit tons of photos (the week of Christmas as if that is not a hectic week as it is) and I ran around for 2 weeks trying to make everything perfect in the event they came to take photographs. Turned out they decided to go with another home without even telling us. It actually turned out for the better though because that is right when I found out I was pregnant and I was SOOOOO tired and if photographers had been coming here I would have been so overwhelmed. Everything in it's time right? As for now I have a permanent smile on my face, to know that some of what I do might inspire other people means more to me than anyone could know:) Now go get your copy!

Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Oh happy day! We have one little section of our house sided with clapboard!

Neal and Eli worked hard all fall to get the siding up on this section of our house.

We are using cedar siding intermixed with pieces of the original clapboard siding that we have been trying to salvage as we go. Sadly the original clapboard is so old and brittle that most of it breaks as we remove it from the house so we only get a good piece here and there.

I filled the holes in the original clapboard (the blue pieces) with wood filler and then sanded them. Once I had it all painted with Glidden's paint color "White on White" you could not tell the difference between the two types.

The above picture shows why the original clapboard is in such bad shape. Unfortunately it was covered not only with one layer of fiber cement board but then aluminum on top of that trapping inside years of water damage that lead to moisture build up and rot. Oh how I wish that the previous owners had just left it wood siding. The worst thing you can do to an old house is put layer upon layer of materials because you will inevitably cause moisture build up. On top of it you can't see what areas are being damaged or rotting. Both the inside of our farmhouse and the exterior had that done to them. You can see the new wood that we put up on the right side of the above picture. The day that we have all of the aluminum and cement board siding off of the house will be the greatest day in my book.

This little side porch is all we can afford to do for now though. I promise to show this side of the house in it's entirety at some point but right now it is a work in progress. This is not our front door but it is the way most people come in because it is where our driveway comes up to. This whole area was a rotting screen porch that we tore off. I will show before and afters someday and you won't believe the difference.

Just like everywhere else we have renovated so far we tried to save every penny possible. The door was free from a family friend. I painted it "Porch Gray" by Better Homes and Gardens. To me it is the perfect door color because it goes with everything. Right now it looks great with the pumpkins but come Christmas it will go nicely with green and red and then come spring it compliments all of our purple bushes and flowers.

The window was $20 at a garage sale and matches with the rest of the double hung windows we have put in. And the light (from Walmart) is just like the one in our bathroom but only made for exteriors and comes on at dusk and goes off at dawn. Isn't that genius! No more coming home to a dark house!

I was so excited to have a cute porch to put pumpkins on this year. As I explained the exterior of our house is in rough shape and I always felt like any seasonal decorating I did out here was like putting lipstick on a pig. But now at least I have this one little area that I can make cute.

Sadly when it came time to do the trim work out here we had nothing to go on because almost all of the original trim has been removed from our house. And when I went to research what measurement pre-1900 farmhouse trim would have been I found almost nothing. I wanted it to look substantial but not too bulky so we went with five inch casings around the windows and door. Then Neal added a drip edge to the tops of the trim to give it that authentic old house feel.

We don't have railings up yet but definitely by next summer because our little Millie will be learning to walk by then!

Saturday, October 11, 2014

I added some touches of Autumn to the dining room and thought I would share them with you on this beautiful sunny day.

I used one of my caramel stripe grainsacks for the runner and some pin oak leaves and baby boos add a simple touch of autumn to the table. I had set my ever growing stack of ironstone platters on the table while I figured out where to put them when I thought to myself that they are just too pretty to put away.

I snagged the very old cutting board under the enamelware pitcher at an estate sale in an early 1800's farmhouse this past summer. I actually bought two amazing cutting boards there, the other one is in the pile of things I need to get listed in my Etsy shop...all you cutting board junkies be on the look out:)

Over on the sideboard I hung a twig wreath on the old door and put a beautiful jarrahdale pumpkin in an ironstone bowl. I was so excited to see that Walmart had all kinds of heirloom pumpkins for $3 this year. Most of our local farms don't sell these rare types of pumpkins and I bought jarrahdale seeds to grow my own but never got them in ground.

Thursday, October 2, 2014

It is officially Autumn and the leaves have really started to fall here this past week. Time to get out the heavier blankets and cozy up the house.

The slipcover I ordered for our couch arrived and I couldn't be happier with it. Just to recap the couch and love seat are hand me downs from my parents. They are from Arhaus and are so well made but with their tropical print slipcovers were a must. I found the love seat slipcover at Ikea, read more about it here. I ordered the couch slipcover directly from Arhaus in their Delphina linen option, it is a
beautiful almost deerskin color and machine washable.

I love that the couch will go with whatever I decide to put in the room depending on the season. For so many years I had to decorate around a very colorful very floral couch, why I didn't go with neutral from the start I will never know.

To bring some of the fall colors in I put an Ikea plaid throw across the back of the couch and cut some leaves from our pin oaks (my favorite trees).

My 5 dollar galvanized tub is perfect for holding blankets. I especially love the new cable knit one my sister just bought me for when I lay with Millie.

I added some old white handles that I bought at a salvage yard to my tray. When you are looking for old hardware on the cheap head to a salvage yard. I got about 10 pieces of vintage hardware for about 2 dollars, can't beat that.